Tag: Write More Light Into Your Life

MWC Announces the Winner of the 2025 Great River Writer’s Retreat — Stella Joyce Krall 

Posted on by Ryan Collins

Congratulations to this year’s winner of the great River Writer’s Retreat, Stella Joyce Krall of Madison, WI!

Krall will be in residence August 25 – 31, 2025, at Benet House Retreat Center in Rock Island, preparing one novel manuscript for publication “that looks at the nature of memory and whether a person’s culpability for previous actions is excused if they lose their memory due to dementia rather than repression,” while developing a newer manuscript about “a pair of college friends whose lives have diverged despite their physical and emotional closeness.” She will share some of her work during a public reading at The Atlas Collective (1801 5th Ave., Moline, IL) on Saturday, August 30 at 4pm. 

SPECTRA Reading Series | Final Event of 2024: 12/7 fea. Jacob Saenz & Narratives QC

Posted on by Ryan Collins

SPECTRA Lives! The Quad Cities longest-running reading series returns to Rozz-Tox on Saturday, December 7 for its last event of the year, featuring award-winning poet Jacob Saenz and local writers from Narratives QC.

Saenz, whose book Throwing the Crown, won the 2018 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, will also lead a free community write-in at 6:00 p.m.; there will be short reading, followed by a prompt written by Saenz. Copies of the reading will be available at no cost, and there will be time for participants to write and briefly discuss their work, followed by an open mic. Then at 8:00 p.m., three writers from Narratives QC will read from their work – Lynn Carsten, Tanner Jordan, and Nathan Wirth – with Poet and Creative Arts Specialist for Narratives QC Chris Britton introducing. A feature reading from Jacob Saenz will close out the evening.